Thursday, August 21, 2008

Gaslight Theatre and The Retro Rockets

The Gaslight Theatre bills itself as “The Hottest Thing to Hit Tucson Since Sunshine!” offering Musical Melodrama Open Year Round.

The Gaslight TheatreTrue to its name, Gaslight Theatre is a venue for live performances from local actors performing plays such as Beach Blanket Bebop (or "That's for Surfin'!") and Frankenstein Lives! (or “The Jolt’s On You!). They also host a “Family Concert Series” once each week that offers live music suitable for the entire family.

It was a live music event that served as my introduction to Gaslight Theatre. Last Monday I attended a concert featuring the local classic rock band called the Retro Rockets, and their first set promised to consist entirely of music by the Beatles.

A Gaslight SunsetOK, this photo has nothing to do with either the Retro Rockets or Gaslight Theatre. I just had to take this shot of the sunset reflecting off the clouds. It made me hungry for pizza.

The Retro Rockets aren’t just a tribute band to the Beatles and don’t limit themselves to Beatles music but they did a great job of covering early Beatles hits. They had a great time doing it as well, and took turns bantering with each other and the audience.

The audience appreciated it, and at the beginning of the evening were singing along with parts of the chorus of songs. By the end of the evening people were loosening up, and most of the audience was singing along to entire songs.

The Retro Rockets made it easy to sing along. After performing the first set of Beatles music, they filled their second set with such recognizable and feel-good hits like “Pretty Woman”, “Peaceful Easy Feeling”, “Long Cool Woman”, “I’m a Believer”, “Hang on Sloopy”, and “Do You Believe in Magic”.

The Retro RocketsThe Retro Rockets (photo courtesy of their MySpace page)

Tickets for performances at the Gaslight Theatre are sold in advance, and the Retro Rockets appeared to have sold out the house.

The seating at Gaslight Theatre consists of two or three chairs around a small wooden table, and if you’re hungry waitresses will bring you food - mostly sandwiches, some desserts, as well as beer and wine. It’s the latter two that I really appreciated. By the middle of the second set, when everyone was singing along to classic rock and roll, and I was sipping on my third beer, it struck me how much it felt like I was back in the early 70’s, booze cruising in a friends car, singing along with the radio.

And guess what? After all these years it’s still fun to listen to great music with friends while sipping on a barley pop or two. And MUCH safer than drinking and driving.

I had a great time at the Gaslight Theatre and plan to be back to take in a play or two and I’ll DEFINITELY be back for the live jazz music coming up in October.

The Web site for the Gaslight Theatre is http://www.thegaslighttheatre.com/ (have patience, it takes a while to load).

The Retro Rockets are booked throughout the rest of the year. Their schedule is on their Web site at http://www.myspace.com/tucsonretrorockets.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

and there they are, the retro rockets! :D it does sound fun.

and love the photo with the pizza sign and the amazing cloud.

Robert said...

Thanks for the compliment on the photo, Ann.

In the interest of full disclosure, even though Gaslight Theatre serves pizza, I had a hot dog. It was tasty, too!

Anonymous said...

Good for people to know.

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